Tobias advanced on Luis with his sword tip held at neck height. "Answer the ballast plain and truthful!""Or what, your sword can't pierce the stone covering on me!"Tobias pressed the sword tip against the stone causing Luis to squeak, "According to who?"Tobias was struggling to keep control of himself, something about Luis was reawakening the part of him that was the false king, the part that he had tried to banish.

"Gray Wardern's monastery." Luis said with anger flashing in his eyes.

"In the den of the dragon then.. When we leave this world and we will lock you inside you green eyed bastard, we will be in the heart of the white knights. That will make it easy to stop their plan but getting our will be tricky. All in?"

Verity was frightened the young soldier who'd gotten her into this crowd was becoming eerily beautiful and faintly transparent like an illusion scene painted on gauze. The golden armour and crown made it worse. She grabbed Celia's arm "Um excuse me Mrs Ballast could you get your son back to himself please? I think it's urgent."

Celia nodded and stepped up to Tobias. She eased the sword down and enfolded him in her arms. My sweet boy ease back. I need you here with me." Celia whispered in his ear. "There will be time for fighting soon but for now rest and help me plan. We are going to a very dangerous place and we need to be all here. If he was able to hurt me with binding my image I don't know what is waiting for us. If I am unable to fight I need you to rally and bring them home safe."

"She's right, lad," Marley intoned. "Me and Bill are here, too, but I'm just a knight, and he's ... well, more than he seems, but he's not the heir. Same for Miss Beety; for all she's Morrigan's proxy and in mine and Bill's heads, and vice versa, and all that, She's not you. The point is, you're milady's heir, and that makes you the one who takes over if something happens - even if it only happens temporarily, and even if it's been a lifetime by your own reckoning since you were here and now last. I know firsthand how hard it can be to jump the dimensions and keep a clear head, but if a muddleheaded, glorified clock mechanic like me can do it, you can too. Keep your head, we need you." Marley broke off. "Blast, I sound like my Dad just before I went off to war. But it's true nonetheless."

Tobias was breathing hard, this wasn't what he wanted to be doing, why cant he go back to the army where things were simple. He felt Celia's pressing on his arm and his sword slowly dropped to the ground. With a mighty effort he turned away, replaced the sword and focused on the image of himself that he normally used. After what felt like a long time, his image shifted, the golden armour fading away to be replaced with the ordinary uniformed soldier.

"Thank you sweetheart. Now comes the fun part We are most likely walking in to an ambush so how do we turn this to our advantage. I am wondering if we can't use the fact we have old green eyes to spin some sort of strike." Celia looked back at the statue. "Perhaps we can make them think they won until we know what we are in for."

"Love to siphon off some of his power," Marley said, a wicked gleam in the all too beady eyes iof his raven form. "be a bit like the magazine on one of those new military rifles. Bill, ever experiment with discreet spell packages? likie little power cartridges..."

"Cartridges?" Bill answered dubiously. "Yer mean, loike bullets an' that? Not for that stuff, but I were gonna tell you, it'd be easier to change back an' forth if ye set aside little spurts o'power for it... Yeah, now you mention it, that'd be almost th' sam fing, loik..."

The two fell to nattering back and forth on such matters. Then, after a few moments,Marley turned his little raven head back around to peer dowmn at Celia from atop Luis' stonetrapped head, and said, "that might be a way to mask how much power we actually have, milady..."

"Can we combine that with the ink?" They looked at her in confusion. "I mean can we make it look like the ink has taken us over and find a way to make one of us look like greenie has us in hand and then see what we can get them to reveal while they think they have the upper hand. It will be risky but I think it has potential." Celia looked at Thomas and wondered if they could make him look the part. Perhaps swap them like the prince and the pauper.

"Not directly they have been laying low after facing The Morgain's wrath. That is why I have been able to have a restful time of it. So you should be able to pull the wool over their eyes but if they are around you for any amount of time you will shine through. That is the way of it for us Cromerty's and yes that goes for you too. When you took on the name you got the rest of it as well." Adoption worked in interesting ways along Celia family line but knowing the magic on their shoulders perhaps it was not so off after all.

Smiling she riffled his hair. "I will have to teach you sometime. There are a lot of things being my son means and if you are going to stay around you should know them. Marley how fast can you change now? Mainly because having you in an ink cage will give them one hell of a shock if we need you to appear suddenly. I am not worried about you at all Beety, you will no doubt have them convinced you belong there in double time but Verity we are about to go somewhere dangerous and if you wish to remain here I understand."

There was a greenish flash and a bit of smoke, and then Marley was back in raven fiorm, having switched to human a few minutes before. "Make sure you seal the cage so I don't absorb any ink," he said, "as I wouldn't want to suddenly become a thrall to the enemy's will. Not that I'd be much of a threat to yourself, Milady Celia, save for perhaps about twenty seconds. Bill, maybe you'd better join me.

"Don't worry it will be my ink not his." She looked over at Luis with a wicked grin. "You should have tried much harder to take me over because you won't get another chance." She was only half fibbing. Her body could neutralize threats if given time but she was not exactly at her best while it was doing so. Wincing she called the ink out of the wound and it came slow and sluggish pooling in her hand. It had become more green then black and shimmered in the bright sunlight. It formed vines seemingly on its own taking on the form in Celia's head. There was a little pool left in her palm after the cage was formed. "Lets draw a door with this. If my theory is right the fact my magic is in it should make it more likely to open in an auspicious place but the monastery has it's own magic and that might interfere a bit."

The door grew in a different form than she was expecting The wood was old but the lock was shiny new. Someone had been fortifying things. "All right be on your guard. I don't know what we are stepping in to." Thomas touched her shoulder and the likeness between him and Luis made her jump. "Oh my that is effective. Your eyes aren't quite as green but other than that you could be twins."

"There is a Grecian young lady all done up in pink. I painted this world to be with her but they took her. I think they used her to..." Thomas trained off pale and scared.

Celia put an arm around him. "We will save her if we can. Everyone ready? I think it is time we put a stop to these knight's ambitions."

Tobias' seamed to fade out for a moment as if disappearing from sight, when he did return his form had changed again and he was now shorter, his elven features more prominent. The only thing that stood out and non elven was the face that he now sported a long beard and his uniform had been replaced with robes, his weapons completely hidden from sight, "I'm ready now!" he said in a voice that was not one that the others had heard before.

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Tobias look at Abraham, "Light or dark, they are all the same. It is our actions in the present that define us, not the blood of our past."He held out a supporting arm to Abraham, "Sorry for shooting you!"Abraham looked at Tobias and smiled at the elfs decidedly un elf like smile.

The look shared by Beety and Verity was far too innocent. Disguised as a matched pair of pre raphaelite beauties they wafted into place holding the proverbial gilded cage around Celia. It made her appear trapped and helpless. Better, it made them look like mere decorations. Another piece of Beety's stage magic assisting real magic to confuse the enemy. "I wonder" though Celia "if Beety wants the girl as an apprentice, accomplice or sparring partner. Perhaps all three...If we survive."

Celia fished a small bottle from a pocket deep in her skirts and handed it to Abraham. "Drink this before we cross and you should feel better soon. As for Mallard we were separated in the museum but It would not surprise me if he turned up in the monastery. I think they intended for all of us to end up here. It is show time ladies and gents lets give them hell."

Thomas opened the thick slab of a door with a creak of hinges and a burst of air too cold for the warm summer day they were surrounded with. Celia shuddered a bit at the felling of vast dark magic that came with it. Some one had been hard at work here. She glared angrily at the guards who looked at her like she was a fine turkey trussed up for dinner. A man in a gray robe stepped forward. "Ah brother Rushton you have outdone yourself."

The look on the other man's face was cool. "I suppose I do. We should take them down to the labs and ready them for the Warden's return tonight." There was not much Thomas could think of to say to dissuade him and aloud the guards to guide them along like an honour procession.